ARTICLES ABOUT LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO BY DATE - PAGE 3

Anyone remotely associated with the theater is aware of how much of a business it is. The legions of carpenters, truck drivers, painters and electricians; the theater and stage managers; the directors of lighting, sound, special effects and their respective crews; the dancers, musicians, actors and ushers. They don't work for free. Hydraulic orchestra pits and computerized light and sound boards aren't cheap either. Tickets, priced high enough but not so expensive as to turn away potential audiences, never cover all of the operating costs.

Violinist Rachel Barton earned a standing ovation from the audience at last weekend's benefit for the Center for the Performing Arts at Governors State University. The 22-year-old Barton, accompanied by Patrick Sinozich on piano, played an hour-long program that included selections from "Carmen," the Grand Duo Concertante by Franz Liszt, and Handel's Sonata in F Major. The benefit, celebrating the end of the second season of the Center for Performing Arts, was underwritten by the Sage Foundation, which donated $100,000.

Over the years, Chicago has developed a love affair with South Africa's Ladysmith Black Mambazo. In addition to appearing here frequently on its traditional concert tours, the group was in residence at Steppenwolf for two wildly successful plays, "The Song of Jacob Zulu" and "Nomathemba." Friday's sold-out show at Park West showed why the ebullient, 10-piece vocal group has become an international sensation on its own since gaining international prominence through touring and recording with Paul Simon.

Chicago plays host to some royalty this week. No, it's not Fergie or Charlie or Diana on yet another publicity junket. This is artistic royalty. Two of reggae's great innovators, the Skatalites (see entry below) and U-ROY, are in town. While U-Roy (Ewart Beckford) didn't invent toasting -- the lilting, proto-rap reggae singing style -- his utterly original late '60s/early '70s records were among the genre's first creative and commercial breakthroughs. If U-Roy's recent Mad Professor-produced LP, "Babylon Kingdom Must Fall," is less hairy than those early smashes, it's still vital and beguiling.

In a program titled "Rhythms of the Caribbean," Belizean composer, guitarist and singer Nelson Gill promises to connect the dots of the tropical archipelago. Gill is not merely an adept musician; his background in what is formerly the Mosquito Coast places him in a strategic nexus. He distills Belize's quick-witted and frontal punta and shows its relation to other forms. One does not have to strain to hear the Central African roots that also gave us calypso and mento in punta.

"Dolly Parton: Treasures": This hourlong special (7 p.m., WBBM-Ch. 2) is even more of a mongrel than the "Treasures" CD for which it functions as an infomercial. Consider: Parton starts singing "Behind Closed Doors," in front of an audience, then her mountain twang gives us a newsreelesque narrative on the song's era, then the director cuts in images of Richard Nixon, Sam Ervin, Golda Meir and Bobby Riggs. She's still singing. Her fealty to the era, however, isn't deeply felt enough to keep intact the "I felt like getting high" line in Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush"; that gets P.C.ed to "I could cry."

It's back-to-the-future time in world music. Thirty, even 15 years ago, most of the foreign sounds now known collectively as world music were packaged in austere, scholarly sets and organized by their country or region of origin. A few small labels such as Nonesuch Explorer and Lyrichord headed the field, and their clientele consisted mostly of people whose appetites for exotic sounds extended well beyond the pop mainstream. The field began to grow in the early '80s when Nigerian superstars like King Sunny Ade and Fela Anikulapo Kuti toured America to great acclaim.

Any year that sent into oblivion such former bulwarks of Chicago's resident theater as Remains and the Body Politic cannot be counted an entirely happy one. And, even as the flow of big touring entertainments picked up downtown, the strain of survival for the city's small off-Loop theaters continued to be a worrisome fact of life. Along with the concerns, however, there were reasons for celebration in 1995, 10 of which are listed here as the best of the year, in alphabetical order.

At the deep, singing heart of Steppenwolf Theatre's beautiful and deeply moving production of "Nomathemba" is that fragile and precious element of life called hope. It is hope hemmed in by tragedy and uncertainty, set in a changing South Africa, but it is hope nonetheless, and in the end, it is triumphant. And so, for that matter, is "Nomathemba," a credit to all the artists involved in it, who, coming from a variety of cultures, have combined to make this a whole and powerful work of art. Those who witnessed Steppenwolf's extraordinary 1992 presentation of "The Song of Jacob Zulu" can testify to the amazing theatrical impact of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the 11-man a cappella group whose haunting, piercing harmonies punctuated and underlined the emotions of that tragedy of apartheid.

It's a powerful case of art imitating life, more specifically of "The Song of Jacob Zulu" and "Nomathemba" mirroring South Africa. "Song," first presented by Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Ladysmith Black Mambazo in 1992 (and later brought to Broadway), was a musical explosion triggered by the evils of apartheid. Imitating Greek tragedy, its tale of the conversion of a young black South African from docile victim to unrepentant terrorist was fueled by, among other events, the beating of Rodney King.